MULDOON'S PICNIC, WILDFLOWERS, and More Make Up Irish Arts Center's Fall Season

Irish Arts Center (IAC) announces its eclectic Fall 2018 lineup, offering audiences a characteristically panoramic view of the best of what's happening in Irish Arts. With its wide range of musical, theatrical, dance, literary, visual arts, interdisciplinary, and educational events, the season exemplifies Irish Arts Center's unwavering drive to present a panoply of ideas, approaches and perspectives; its eye for innovative and eye-opening work; and its consistent fostering of collaborations between luminaries from diverse backgrounds and artistic practices. The fall season will coincide with the imminent start of construction of the Center's landmark permanent new home in Hell's Kitchen, scheduled to open in 2020.

Mikel Murfi's performance and process is perfectly aligned with IAC's vision of nurturing community through the provision of exemplary art. For his companion plays, I Hear You and Rejoice, which makes its U.S. premiere at IAC September 12-October 21, and The Man In the Woman's Shoes, which runs in repertory with Rejoice, Murfi interviewed and immersed himself in the lives of elderly residents in his hometown Sligo to create-and embody all on his own-a warm, rich, and nuanced theatrical portrait of the community in the '70s and '80s, which he then presented back to them. Those who saw The Man In the Woman's Shoes at IAC in 2015 will find their relationship with Murfi's singular style and his depiction of small town Irish existence deepening, and audiences new to his work will marvel at how his acting acrobatics can, most importantly, access and activate our hearts.

This season's dance programming encompasses both bold new approaches to conventional Irish dance and contemporary interdisciplinary performance. In a co-presentation with La MaMa (2018 Tony Award for Regional Theatre), IAC presents Wildflowers, a feminine genesis (October 18-21), a celebration of femininity from "mesmerizing" (Boston Globe), "otherworldly" (Star Tribune) choreographer and dance artist Maureen Fleming, with original music by Colm Mac Con Iomaire, a founding member of The Frames who in his solo career has "turn[ed] the traditional on its head" with "imaginative and cinematic" work (Uncut). Bessie-nominated company Darrah Carr Dance returns to IAC with Dancing The Great Arc, in collaboration with fiddler Dana Lyn and guitarist Kyle Sanna (October 26-27),The performance sets the dance company's fusion of Irish step and contemporary modern dance to Lyn and Sanna's concept album, The Great Arc, "a deep musical work full of lavish, evocative textures" (The Irish Echo) inspired by extinct and endangered species.

Festive, complex music grounded in various Irish traditions often examined alongside a multitude of other adjacent traditions (including bluegrass, old time, folk, jazz and the Mexican son jarocho style) will resound this Fall at IAC. The organization revisits cherished events like the New York Trad Fest (November 10)-"a testament to the fabulous music...and homegrown talent who keep New York the hub of Irish traditional music in America" (Irish Central)-and the Winter Solstice Celebration (December 14 at Symphony Space). This year, the Solstice concert brings together musical traditions from Ireland and the Gulf of Mexico, with hosts Mick Moloney and Athena Tergis; members of The Green Fields of America; and son jarocho artists of the beloved NYC based band Radio Jarocho including Julia del Palacio, Carlos Cuestas with Zenen Zeferino and Guadalupe Peraza. On November 29, vocalist/composer Christine Tobin and guitarist/composer Phil Robson's recurring jazz concert Tobin's Run on 51 celebrates the Greenwich Village jazz scene and showcases songs by legends Abbey Lincoln and Sarah Vaughan, with special guest instrumentalists Tim Armacost, Peter Brendler, Ingrid Jensen, Jimmy Macbride, and David O'Rourke. Singer-songwriter Rebecca Hart, noted for her "impressively well-textured voice" (Time Out New York), performs songs from her most recent album The Magician's Daughter (December 7).

Bridging IAC's penchants for lively concert and literary events, Muldoon's Picnic-a monthly words and music salon led by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon-returns with an exhilarating roster of guests across the three-part series of events (September 10, October 8, November 12), including National Book Award-winning poet Mark Doty, PEN/Voelcker Award-winningpoet Kimiko Hahn, Nowhere Man/The Lazarus Project author Aleksandar Hemon, celebrated playwright Sarah Ruhl (Eurydice, In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)), and two-time Grammy-winning jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson. One of IAC's most intimate and thought-provoking events, PoetryFest, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. As the festival enters its double-digits, curator Nick Laird convenes the talents of Ciaran Carson, Vona Groarke, Maureen McLane, Michelle O'Sullivan, Natalie Diaz, Billy Ramsell, Nicole Sealy, and more in a testament to the vastness of what poetry can accomplish through varied styles, subjects, and perspectives (November 1-4).

In its educational programming, IAC delves into art, culture, history, and politics with dynamism and rigor. Master Classes in the Fall 2018 include All About Traditional Music Sessions, with ethnomusicologist and IAC teacher Christina Dolphin (December 9); Brexit 101: The Consequences of Brexit for the UK and Ireland, with Skidmore professor Peter Moloney (October 23); and an Intercultural Connections Series (November 28) exploring Irish vocal styles in a global context with folklorist and ethnomusicologist Mick Moloney. Through various panels and talks, IAC celebrates the power of discussion to unpack thorny subjects: Mick Moloney, musicians Jerron Paxton and Leni Sloan, music journalist and historian Ken Emerson, and IAC director of programming Rachael Gilkey will discuss a particularly fraught legacy-that of the "father of American music" Stephen Foster-and that legacy's evocation of larger questions of how to address influential and historical art that's also unequivocally problematic (September 27). IAC's Movements series, featuring insightful conversations with important global voices, continues this season with a talk withHis Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York moderated by National Book Award winner Alice McDermott (October 29).

Key to cultivating and maintaining community is IAC's passing down of artistic legacies and exciting modes of thinking and creating to the next generation of curious minds. This season, IAC's events for children and families include a lesson in traditional Irish instrumentation (Fiddles and Whistles and Bodhráns, Oh My!-September 22); a celebratory, creative, and very Irish approach to Halloween with RTÉ Junior's abraKIDabra magician Joe Daly and Darrah Carr Dance (An Irish Halloween / Oíche Shamhna-October 28); a showcase of popular, animal-oriented Irish cartoons, with a performance by Darrah Carr Dance inspired by endangered animals (Saturday Morning Cartoons-November 19); and an opportunity to make traditional Irish crafts with teaching artists from Textile Arts Center (Family Makers Day-December 8); and more.

Across the season, Why Are We, Bernie Leahy's mid-career solo exhibition of stitched drawings and small sculptures, displaying the artist's usage of fragments of the human form to "to convey fleeting moods, glances, moments" will be on view (September 10-December 14).

Photo via Irish Arts Center

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